It is already remarkable that an artist at the zenith of his career, when he is planning a publication that encapsulates the essences of his artistic journey, when he is planning a book that refers to the several highlights of his work, considers it important to start, to lay the foundations, to engage in studies. This is particularly instructive in the case of Győző Sárkány, because the first decades of his career are very much based on this approach, which he developed during his initial years of training and self-education.
A young man with strong abilities of observation, he was soon able to create large-scale charcoal drawings as well as reinterpret the works of great art historical predecessors. Already then, he had the great idols such as Dürer, Rembrandt and Goya in front of him, whose oeuvre he tried to study with all the means available, and his own concept of drawing developed by incorporating his visions and associations of the works of the geniuses of European art into his highly linear drawing culture, reaching the highly personal world of his unique paraphrases. In his drawing studies, Győző Sárkány never works by creating patches, and never considers his work as a picture, but remains with all his strength and his given knowledge in the field of the omnipotent drawing.
The small selection shown here explains how and through what steps the very precise draughtsmanship developed, on which a career as an illustrator, then as a graphic artist and all the stages from there onwards, could be based. It becomes absolutely clear that the period of creating the studies was a definitive phase in the artist’s oeuvre, which we can now consider an era, whose professional and artistic lessons were incorporated with intense creativity into his later oeuvre, which was to display a wide range of approaches and techniques.
Balázs Feledy art writer
